Image, pride, politics – local identity versus European Capital of Culture

The article discusses the role of the European Capital of Culture organisation in the process of negotiating and creating a local identity of a city and its citizens. Social production of the local identity has been analysed as a process of the weaving of a triple helix linking the city’s social capital, citizen’s sense of pride and prestige, and forging it together into collective and individual benefits. The results of research on attitudes towards the idea of the European Capital of Culture presented here suggest that this event became an important device in the public discourse on the struggle for identity, which results in establishing rights to the city